Day 94--En route to Honolulu

25 November. 33°17’N, 139°43’E. Course: 090. Speed 16 knots.

We’re 18 hours east of Kobe, about 8 miles north of the Isu Islands, which (I think I remember this) are the peaks of the tallest mountains in the world. That’s true because (again, I think I remember this) we’re just about to sail over the Japan Trench, part of the Marianas Trench, which is the deepest point of all the world’s oceans—something over 30,000 feet. Six miles down. In brief, there’s a lot of water below us. And funny thing: it all looks exactly the same as all the other water I’ve seen over the past 3 months.

We left our final non-US port, Kobe, Japan, last night at 2100 (9pm) to the Big Band sounds of a local ensemble of musicians, assembled and playing on one of the decks of the port terminal. It was the city’s and country’s farewell to a group that had, over the past 5 days, pumped much yen into the Japanese economy. And Japan returned the investment many fold. A beautiful, orderly, amazingly clean, extraordinarily friendly, wonderfully quiet (I heard one car horn the entire 5 days), exceedingly polite people. Most on board are talking today about the time spent “in my new favorite country.”

There is a dark underbelly to the Japanese nirvana, however. They have the highest suicide rate in the world. Their economy is still reeling from the “lost decade” of the ‘90s and taking a belly punch from the current world recession. A million Japanese kids have locked themselves in their rooms (literally!), refusing to come out, because of the stress to succeed created by the school system. And the young generation, especially the women, are rebelling, striking out on their own, refusing to follow the old traditions and to fall into the old roles. So the question is will Japan be able to continue their near-idyllic world, or will the cultural rules break down and will Japan become like the rest of the developed world: a little noisier, a little dirtier, a lot less pleasant? It’ll be interesting for my kids and grandkids to watch. Meanwhile, Japan sure is a wonderful place to visit.

Tokyo and Yokohama

We arrived in Yokohama harbor right on time: 0800 the morning of 20 November. It was the Friday before a 3-day weekend in Japan, and most of the MV Explorer voyageurs had had trouble finding hotel rooms—at least, affordable hotel rooms—for their overland trips, especially in the cities everyone wanted to visit: Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, and Hiroshima. I, on the other hand, had no plans other than wanting to take a day trip to Hiroshima on the 23rd, our first day in Kobe. And I had no expectations for Yokohama and Tokyo other than another typical port city and another typical big city. I was wrong on both counts.

We sailed into the port of Yokohama under a glistening white bridge spanning the opening to the bay like a grand welcoming gate. In front of us was a skyline of new, sparkiling skyscrapers interspersed with traditional-style brick buildings, all lining a waterfront of parks and trees. The port terminal itself is, as I said earlier, a work of art mixing steel, wood, and parkland in a flowing building that gracefully rises and falls as it swoops from its endpoint in the bay to its terminus at the city park.

Jim and Shamim had made reservations at a Tokyo hotel—the Villa Fontaine—and they were going to follow Maria Chapel and Betsy Bloom into the city. Maria planned to meet a friend at a train station near the Ginza and then, after lunch, envisioned a walking tour of the heart of Tokyo. Betsy, Jim, and Shamim planned to tag along, so I invited myself to join them. Bob Chapel stayed at the ship as duty dean—babysitter—for the day.

After clearing the ship, the five of us walked, first, to the local post office to get cash at one of the few ATMs that accept non-Japanese credit cards (at least that’s what we were told). Then we walked down into the Yokohama subway and took a 10-minute ride to Yokohama Station, where we caught the JR (Japan Rail) train to Shimbashi Station, Tokyo. It took some bewildered looks to figure out how to buy tickets for the train, but soon we all figured out the system that is, despite the very different language, pretty simple to manage. All signs on the public transportation system are in Japanese and English. And, though not always easy to find, signs telling where to go next are nearby all exits from trains and subways. Despite the to-Western-eyes indecipherable characters of the Japanese language, Japan is a surprisingly easy country in which to get around.

Maria’s friend, Edsko, met us at Shimbashi Station, and led us via underground halls and malls to the Villa Fontaine, which is only a few blocks from the station and a few blocks from the Ginza, Tokyo’s Times Square and Michigan Boulevard. I had brought with me only things to get me through the day, intending to return to Yokohoma and the ship that evening. But the hotel was very nice, brand new, excellently located. And Jim and Shamim had gotten a for-Tokyo excellent rate of just under $200/night.

I asked a clerk if they had any single rooms available. To my astonishment, they offered me a room for the night at ¥10,000—just over $100. I didn’t pause an instant and took the room. The rate even included breakfast, a toothbrush, a razor, and shaving cream. A fresh pair of underwear, and I’d be set.

We left the hotel and went first to a restaurant on the top floor of an office building just outside the Ginza. The restaurant was a typical business venue, but very Japanese, with small, private rooms, complete with sliding doors, for small parties like ours. I had teriyaki with udon noodles, all delicious and accompanied by an excellent view across a park to Tokyo Bay.

After lunch, Edsko led us to the grounds of the imperial palace, home of the emperor and empress. The palace sits on a series of islands square in the middle of Tokyo, the islands defined by stone-lined moats and marked by guard towers that retain the traditional, multi-storied look common in Japanese painting. To get to the palace grounds, we walked across a wide park—Hibya—that runs along a 6-lane boulevard—Hibya Dori. I had stayed in a hotel on this same boulevard when I was in Tokyo about 12 years ago—the November it snowed—and I thought then how much that area reminded me of Michigan Boulevard in Chicago where it runs along Grant Park. Today, the area seems even more like Chicago, except, of course, Grant Park has no views of medieval guard towers and ancient bridges curving over imperial moats. I suppose Tokyo doesn’t have anything quite like Taste of Chicago either. I’ll bet Tokyo likes it that way.

We walked around the imperial palace grounds—you can’t go inside—then walked the few blocks over to the Ginza, stopping first at a wonderful little coffee shop for what turned out to be the best cup of $10 coffee I’ve ever had. It was little; it was delicious, truly the best I’ve ever had; and the cup, slightly larger than a demitasse, really cost $10. No refills. The preconceptions that people who have never visited Japan may include crowds, traffic, noise, and exorbitant prices. Only the latter is true . . . except for my hotel room at the Villa Fontaine.

By now it was dusk, and the lights of the Ginza were starting to appear as we turned onto Chuo-Don Avenue, Tokyo’s 5th Avenue. This Buddhist/Shinto country goes into Christmas big time, and all the stores were decorated with the secular icons of the season: big Christmas trees, lighted Santas, elves, all the typical decorations we could see at Macy’s or used to be able to see at Marshall Field’s. We saw the same thing in Hong Kong and even, to a lesser degree in Shanghai. Christmas—at least the gift-buying, merchandising part—has become a worldwide holiday.

We found a department store—Sogo—that intrigued the ladies and was a likely place for me to buy a fresh pair of underwear for the morning, so we went in and split up, Jim and I to the men’s floor, Betsy, Shamim, and Maria to . . . wherever. We agreed to meet 40 minutes later.

The men’s floor contained a terrific selection of suits, shirts, sweaters, jackets, everything for the well-dressed businessman and everything very expensive. I didn’t see a shirt priced under US$100, and all the suits were over US$1,000. All this in a store that, from all appearances, is a step down from a Nordstrom’s, probably on par with Macy’s. I finally found the men’s fundamentals—underwear and socks—and picked out the least-expensive pair of pants: one pair, US$11.50. So now the room price had gone up about 10%, still a bargain.

Jim and I had completed our shopping in about 10 minutes, so, with 30 minutes left to kill, we left the store and found a small yakitori and soup counter, where we ordered and enjoyed a couple of draft Asahi beers while we passed the time.

After rejoining the ladies—they were later than 40 minutes, of course—we left the store and split up: Maria, Betsy, and Edsko going to dinner; Jim, Shamim, and I to the hotel a few blocks away.

My room was very small—no bigger than 12’ X 12’—but it had everything I wanted: king-size bed, high-speed internet, TV with BBC news, and a bathroom with toothbrush, saving gear, and a Japanese toilet. When I first visited Japan in ’67, a Japanese toilet was a hole in the ground with a porcelain appliance at ground level shaped something like a spittoon. A few of those remain in Japan today. But most Japanese bathrooms today come equipped with a toilet for those who wouldn’t mind spending hours, even days, on the toilet. These 21st –Century “crappers” (named after the Englishman who invented the first toilet) are equipped with heated seats, even with adjustable temperature settings. And most come with built-in cleansing sprayers. The push of a button causes a few seconds of buzz and whirr while the toilet warms the water, followed by a perfectly aimed spray that is, to say the least, shockingly pleasant. Pleasant comes after the shock. The spray is even adjustable, from gentle mist to something short of tidal wave. There’s also a built-in bidet and, on some, air-drying.

We had been told about the toilets during our cultural pre-port briefing, but I thought they’d be novelty items, maybe only in the very best hotels or Tokyo Disneyland. They’re everywhere. The Japanese are setting new standards for even our most personal activities. Sir Crapper never could have envisioned what this Asian nation would do with his device.

Jim, Shamim, and I found a restaurant in the adjacent mall and had an unusual though very good dinner of asparagus spears, grilled pork, grilled chicken, and something that was similar to a pork egg-foo-young, all served on a hot grills similar to, but smaller than, the ones used at a Benihana’s restaurant in the US. But no chef appeared at this tapanyaki restaurant to fling shrimp at us or put on a show while grilling a steak. Instead, the grill was used to keep the food warm, nothing more. But the food was very good, and we still had room for ice cream after dinner. I stopped by a 7-11 and bought a Haagen-Dazs ice cream sandwich with cookies and cream; Jim and Shamim opted for a McDonalds soft-serve cone.

Then we went back to the hotel, and I was in bed by 10:30pm.

The next morning, following a breakfast of yogurt, rolls, hard boiled eggs, and miso soup, we checked out of the hotel and went across the street to the Hamarikyu Gardens, an ancient garden that was once reserved for the emperor but had long since been given to the city as a public garden. I took lots of pictures in the garden, so I won’t try to describe it except to say that, like everything else in Tokyo, it was perfectly manicured, spotlessly clean, and interlaced with old bridges, ginko-lined paths, sea-fed ponds swimming with carp, and a gazebo sitting on a small peninsula where walkers could stop for a quiet cup of tea. All this was surrounded by the shiny skyscrapers of Tokyo. The trees were especially beautiful because they were at their peak of fall color, and it all made me feel like I was back home in the Midwest, a wonderful place to be.

After a 1-hour walk in the park, the three of us went back to the hotel, where Jim and Shamim grabbed their bags, and we went to Shimbasi station to catch our respective trains, mine back to Yokohama, Jim and Shamim’s to a small village at the foot of Mt Fuji.

That afternoon, I returned to the ship briefly then went out into Yokohama to find an internet connection and to see the city in the vicinity of the port. As I said in my previous entry, Yokohama is a city that makes me happy. I felt very much at home walking through this Japanese version of Evanston IL. I walked along the park that lines the waterfront, watching families out with their kids and being entertained by street artists. Then I turned around and returned to the port area along a street that could have been in the area of the Orrington Hotel: lined with maples and ginkos fronting ‘30s and ‘40s-era buildings housing restaurants and hotels.

At the port terminal, I turned inland and walked a few blocks to the baseball stadium—playoffs are still going on in Japan—turned north a few blocks until I found a Starbucks, where I had an excellent cup of tea and a wonderfully strong WI-FI connection. I remained there for well over an hour nursing the tea and working on blog and e-mails. Then I packed up and headed back to the ship.

It was about 6pm, and ship time—the time we have to back onboard before sailing—was 2100 (9pm), so I stopped for dinner at a small Italian restaurant a few blocks from the port, where I had a Bolognese pizza accompanied by a glass of newly arrived Beaujolais Nouveau, my Thanksgiving swill. The wine was excellent (for swill), the pizza was delicious, the price was reasonable (about US$20). I was back onboard by 2030, and we sailed for Kobe at 2300—11pm.